NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has arrived at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard the Pegasus barge. The spacecraft will undergo processing in the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility ahead of its planned launch.
Named for NASA's first chief astronomer, the Roman telescope is designed to explore dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics. It carries a 2.4-meter primary mirror and a Wide Field Instrument capable of imaging swaths of sky 100 times larger than Hubble.
The launch window opens no earlier than Sunday, Aug. 30, 2026. The telescope's arrival at Kennedy marks a major milestone, with final testing and integration with the launch vehicle expected in the coming months.
Roman's mission aims to survey billions of galaxies, study the structure of the universe, and directly image exoplanets. It is NASA's flagship astrophysics mission of the decade, complementing the James Webb Space Telescope.
The project has an estimated cost of $3.9 billion, including five years of operations. Roman is anticipated to advance the search for habitable worlds and deepen understanding of cosmic expansion.